Results for "fuelband"

Some people have different ways to measure the success of their Twitter accounts, like retweets or number of followers, but how about boiling down all that activity into one easy to understand number? Stinkdigital had an interesting idea and put it to the test, by taking a Nike Fuelband, modifying it, and taking advantage of the generated Fuelband score to measure Twitter activity.

Apple wasn't the only company with a New York City announcement today: Nike stopped off in the Big apple to announce the Nike+ Fuel Band, with help from minor sports icons like Lance Armstrong, Kevin Durant and Carmelita Jeter. The FuelBand takes the Nike+ data collection engine and expands it to a full day's worth of activities, then combines it with a basic LED wristband for data reporting and interaction. Like previous versions of Nike+, the FuelBand can sync with an iPhone over Bluetooth or report straight back to your desktop computer via USB.

A significant update was released yesterday for the Nike+ Fuel app for iOS. Most notably, the app now features HealthKit integration, meaning data from Nike's FuelBand wearable can be shared with the iPhone's new Health app. But also important is that a FuelBand is no longer required at all, as users can instead rely on the health and movement tracking sensors built-in to the iPhone 6 and 5S. Since the app itself remains free, there's now no purchase required to use Nike's movement tracker.

The assumption that you need to strap something onto your wrist in order to accurately gauge your fitness level might not be accurate. Your favorite wearable might not be, either — or at least any more accurate at detecting steps taken than your phone. A new study claims apps are just as good at monitoring your activity level than some of the top wearables on the market. The University of Pennsylvania tested apps and wearables in a controlled environment, and the results are pretty interesting.

Under Armour, most notable as a clothing and footwear manufacturer for sports and fitness buffs, has acquired two software companies. MyFitnessPal and Endomondo are now Under Armour properties, giving the sportswear manufacturer complimentary services to their existing MapMyFitness and UA Record suite of apps. According to Under Armour, this now gives them a user base of over 120 million, and the “largest digital health and fitness community”.

Fitbit’s aim is to build their own platform up, much like the robust system Jawbone has with Up. The difference, at least as Apple seems to view it, is that Jawbone supports HealthKit, Apple’s back-end for cobbling together your health stats. Fitbit has already noted they aren’t interested in supporting Apple’s health initiative, instead taking the “wait and see” approach. It seems that’s finally caught up with them, and like another Apple partner, has been yanked form the Apple Store (at least online) altogether.

You'd need a very big wrist to wear this year's crop of fitness bands and smartwatches, but Microsoft believes the new Microsoft Band can elbow out the competition. Straddling the line between smartwatch and health tracker - not to mention spanning not only Windows Phone but iPhone and Android, in a play for cross-compatibility that rivals could learn a lesson from - the sensor-packed wearable claims to deliver the best of both worlds. In the process, though, Microsoft has arguably given itself double the challenge, so I pulled up my sleeves to see how the Microsoft Band holds up.

Who would've thought it would be Microsoft that would embrace cross-platform wearables so thoroughly, and indeed first. Microsoft Band is, on the face of it, the company's play for the fitness and health market, trailing Android Wear to market but beating Apple Watch by a number of months. However, where Google and Apple's approaches are resolutely wedded to their own individual platforms, Microsoft has spread wide its arms and made Microsoft Band play nicely not only with Windows Phone but with Android and iPhone too, and you don't have to sacrifice 99-percent of the functionality in doing so. I strapped the rubberized, touchscreen-toting health band to my wrist to find out more.

Not long ago, we reported that Fitbit wasn’t enthralled with Apple’s HealthKit. They didn’t say it was lacking, but they also said they were being a bit more pragmatic about it than some users would hope for. According to a new report, Apple will stop selling Fitbit products in their stores, instead choosing to make way for their own wearables which do support HealthKit. Though it’s not clear exactly why Fitbit is being removed from store shelves, the HealthKit slight is hard to look past.

This is the story of how I became a believer in the activity tracking trend sweeping the smart device environment. While I was baffled that anyone would want to exercise in the first place back when products like Jawbone UP, Fitbit, and the Nike Fuelband were launched. Now I understand. I get why it makes sense to want to track how active I am. It’s like scoring points in a video game - only these points make me feel like I’m winning physically. And the Misfit Flash is inexpensive enough - and works well enough - that I wouldn’t even have had to break the bank to get here.